The \”What?\” and \”Why?\” of Sustainable Landscaping

In order to make this world a better place for us and our future generations, we must strive to use the resources provided to us by Nature in a sustainable fashion. One way we can do this is by shifting from traditional landscaping practices to sustainable landscaping.

Sustainable landscaping, in the very simplest of terms, is altering terrain without negatively impacting the natural balance of existing ecosystems and incurring any harmful effects on the environment. Why sustainable landscaping? Traditional landscaping practices rely heavily on fossil fuels and chemicals, both of which are toxic to the natural environment. Furthermore, quite often traditional landscaping practices reduce the biodiversity in an environment in favor of a small number of species which results in an ecosystem becoming unstable. It is because of these adverse effects of traditional landscaping on our environment, that we should shift to practices which are sustainable.

One might, then, ask, “What makes a sustainable landscape?” Generally, any landscape which does not harm the environment can be called sustainable. One example of this is landscape which recycles materials. This slows down depletion of natural resources and thus has a positive effect on the environment. Another example of sustainable landscaping is a landscape which improves soil quality and fertility instead of degrading it. There are many other examples, but the aforementioned are given to give you an idea.

Finally, perhaps the most important question is, is sustainable landscaping economically feasible? Unfortunately, there is no definite answer to this question and it entirely depends on how clever is the use of existing resources and how efficiently the processes are carried out. For example, traditional landscaping is fueled by fossil fuels. Therefore, if one could use renewable energy resources instead of fossil fuels, it would greatly reduce the cost of landscaping. The point here is that whatever the cost, it is essential that we save our planet’s environment.